So it might seem like Missouri hasn't been up to much in the past two hundred some odd years…besides giving us Mark Twain, Akon, and gooey butter cake.

But circa 1815-1820, Missouri was the place to be to observe the evolution of American politics.

At the time, the Compromise was lauded as a great success by virtually every political figure in America. It managed to resolve the Missouri issue through dialogue and lawful democracy—which was quite a feat considering the contentious nature of the issue that was at hand.

In retrospect, however, the Compromise leaves a lot to be desired.

While the political solution to the introduction of Missouri was a great success, the actual issue at hand was left unaddressed. Slavery would continue to plague the U.S., despite all efforts to avoid the issue, and all political solutions would eventually fail, resulting in the bloodiest war in American history.

The impact of the Missouri Compromise is difficult to overstate. It maintained the Union at a critical juncture, set an enormous precedent for future states and their entrance into the Union, and established quite firmly that the slavery issue was one that Congress was entirely unwilling to deal with, apart from blocking their ears and chanting "Nyah, nyah, nyah."

In fact, Congress only convened to address the issue when the problem was so severe that another great compromise was needed…and by then it was far too late to fix the problem.

The Missouri Compromise stands as a testament to how a seemingly small decision early on can have enormous ripples that affect much later events. Compare it to John Lennon meeting a girl named Yoko Ono, or to a Harvard student named Mark Zuckerberg making a little online community for his college.

As Lawrence of Arabia put its, big things have small beginnings, and the Civil War was no exception.